In order to increase road safety using autonomous driver assistance systems or when aiming at (partially) autonomous driving, motor vehicles may rely on so-called “Car2X” communication. For example, “Car2X” communication may refer to data exchange between a host vehicle and one or more other vehicles or to data exchange between the host vehicle and other roadside units. This data exchange may require additional devices for wireless communication (additional hardware), thus causing additional costs.
Some conventional “Car2X” communication concepts employ mobile communication systems, which can be divided into systems with stationary infrastructure (networks), such as cellular systems like the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), or Long-Term Evolution (LTE), for example. Other mobile communication systems do not require stationary infrastructure since they may employ direct point-to-point connections, such as, for example, Bluetooth, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) in ad-hoc mode, optical methods, etc. Yet further conventional Car2X communication examples may employ broadcasting messages.
The mentioned examples all have in common that additional hardware for wireless communication is required. Further, Car2X communication concepts using stationary or cellular networks may not be available in remote rural areas. It is therefore desirable to resort to existing hardware (hardware already available for other functions) for Car2X communication in a vehicle.